text: Occasionally, "confluence" is used to describe the meeting of tidal or other non-riverine bodies of water, such as two canals or a canal and a lake.  A one-mile (1.6 km) portion of the Industrial Canal in New Orleans accommodates the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal; therefore those three waterways are confluent there.
  The term confluence can also apply to the process of merging or flowing together of other substance. For example, it may refer to the merger of the flow of two glaciers.